ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 125 
LANDING PLACE, DUNCAN ISLAND. 
From this point the expedition started on its way to the interior. 
saw that the line of the earth was neither 
straight nor yet quiet, did one realize the great 
forces at work on the face of this calm sea. 
We passed a school of great sea turtles 
quietly sleeping on the surface, entirely oblivi¬ 
ous of the presence of the ultra-modern boat 
and only awakening and sounding when we 
approached within fifty feet. 
The last eight miles, between Indefatigable 
and Duncan, is upon open ocean, whose wide 
expanse reaches to the cold wastes of the 
Antarctic. 
When we took our departure from Inde¬ 
fatigable the steersman was instructed to hold 
a course so that we would land near the 
bottom of what appeared to be a long, deep 
gully between the two larger mountain masses 
of the island. From our boat we could see 
no indication of the shore. Our only guide 
to places that might develop into landings 
were wide, pale lines running from top to 
bottom of the island, which we thought were 
gullies, but which, upon closer investigation, 
proved to be the ridges of hills. As we 
approached the island the tall cliffs to the 
southward stood out more clearly, but gave no 
promise of a suitable landing place. Re¬ 
linquishing the idea of landing anywhere near 
the cliffs, we decided to keep on toward our 
original objective—the central gully. When 
we were two hundred feet from shore a small 
island revealed itself, standing out from the 
rocky mainland, framed on either side by the 
pale pastel green of tropical shoal-water. 
Behind the island we cast anchor, with ten 
feet of water beneath the keel, with full pro¬ 
tection from possible storms and a good stone 
beach on which to land. 
On shore we established a cache, leaving all 
extra supplies that were not absolutely vital 
to the trip. At 10.30 in the morning we started 
off, each of us carrying provisions for two 
days and a single blanket. Divided among 
us were camera and tripod and extra photo¬ 
graphic plates, ropes, two boat-hooks with 
which to make a sling for carrying a tortoise, 
bush knives to clear a trail and extra canteens 
of water. 
When we moved off it was under a blazing, 
hot sun. Not a breath of fresh, cool air came 
to us, but as we looked backward and out over 
the water we could see here and there small 
